stones fired in clay

I am wanting to experiment with something, I did find one or two older posts on here, but not really what I was looking for....but I need some advice. I wanted to experiment with taking slab wrok, or vases, or ?? and inlaying stones (manufactured and natural like coral, markasite, etc) to them, and firing.....one of the posts I read said to make sure you place the item in a saggar?

What if your vase or item is large? How do you build a large enough "container" for it? Has anyone tried something like this? Things I don't know are:
1) will the artificial stones lose color?

2) is this even possible?

3) will they melt (I have the answer for one of the kinds I am looking at)

I guess I really don't know how to go about this - I am NOT looking at using Precious Metal Clay, I want to use B-Mix or something equivalent; it would be fired to cone 06;

Hi,
I have fired garnets in white earthware and terracotto at 06. They just turned black and ugly. Testing is the only thing to do. I would imagine that if it was something that actually worked well it would be something that would be more common and we would have seen pots decorated in this way.
Sorry to be a downer....if you have better luck please post a photo. T

I would start by making some small pieces using the same thickness of clay and size of stone you want to use for larger pieces. My first concern would be whether the clay would crack as it dried and shrank around the stones. If that works, then you could bisque fire the pieces to see what happens. My only reason for using a sagger would be to contain the mess if the pots exploded.

That's all I have to offer, and it is not much. As long as people have been making pots, if you have not seen this, there is probably a good reason.

I have had students fire sandstone. Your question is so wide open. "Stones" cover a huge range of categories. Black river pebbels can be easily pulverized after firing them...and used as a colorant because some of them contain manganese.

I have had students fire sandstone. Your question is so wide open. "Stones" cover a huge range of categories. Black river pebbels can be easily pulverized after firing them...and used as a colorant because some of them contain manganese.

Do you have any idea what the composition of these stones may be?

Marcia

Marcia;Black stones at the beach,[in England], are pure quartz/flint], and can be used directly in a ball mill. You are right, there are a lot of different types of stones.TJR.

I have had students fire sandstone. Your question is so wide open. "Stones" cover a huge range of categories. Black river pebbels can be easily pulverized after firing them...and used as a colorant because some of them contain manganese.

Do you have any idea what the composition of these stones may be?

Marcia

Marcia;Black stones at the beach,[in England], are pure quartz/flint], and can be used directly in a ball mill. You are right, there are a lot of different types of stones.TJR.

Yes and the ones in Japan are used for the cobalt/manganese blue for brush work.Marcia

I know what I am imagining in my minds eye, but I have no idea what kind of stones they are, if they are artificial, etc. I guess I need to get more familiar with stones, and do some more thinking. Thank you all for the input, it helps...even if it isn't much, they are all things that I haven't thought about!

I have no idea what your idea looks like in your mind, but this is another idea to consider. If you cannot fire the stones into the clay successfully, you could put holes or indentations where you want the stones to go and then grout them in place after your pot is finished. Grout comes in many colors, with and without sand. You could match your clay or go for contrast. If you want to try this idea, read up on installing glass tile to see how the process works.

Unless you know what stones they are and how they fire, you are just going to have problems, you will never be sure how they will come out,so I agree with Lucille Oka - add them afterwards. You can get very good cement-type adhesive, as is used for mosaic.

If you are after the aesthetic effect, when you add them afterwards you know exactly what you get.

If you don't know how your stones will be have at temperature, test them -- in a strong saggar in case they explode -- even at bisque stage. Test samples of the stones alone in the saggar, or make test pieces with the test stones that won't upset anyone if there is a failure. That's a good rule of thumb for introducing any unknown material you're putting in the kiln.

The question can be if you have specific stones you want in your work or just want the illusion of rocks? You can always make stones from clay and embed them in your work, It reduces the issues of shrinkage fit. For contrast, use different clay bodies for the "stones" to give different textures, but use something close to the same shrinkage factor. Also play with colorants in your clay "stones". Just use caution when using chemicals and handling with bare hands and surface/tool clean-ups. And if your faux "stones" are large, remember to dry thoroughly and add steam holes as necessary.

A friend once did a study of hollow logs and bird nests, including making many realistic stones and pebbles and bird eggs. With not a lot of effort on the stones, those who didn't watch her endlessly roll and decorate these lumps (She made a LOT of them), would swear she used real rocks in her prices. One errant pebble actually got away and rolled into one of my mugs in a firing. Fortunately, with the way the glazes laid, it was still perfectly functional, but looked like a speckled rock was lodged in the bottom.